2021 ANS Annual Meeting Plenary SPeaker

Clay Sell

X-energy

Chief Executive Officer

J. Clay Sell was appointed CEO of X-energy in January, 2019, and has served on its advisory board since September, 2018. Sell has a deep professional background across many sectors of the U.S. and international energy industry developed during his service in senior level positions in the private sector and government.

Clay completed a 14-year run in government as Deputy Secretary of Energy in the George W. Bush Administration from 2005-2008. In that role under Secretary Samuel W. Bodman III, Clay served as Chief Operating Officer of the department and emerged as one of the leading spokesmen and advocates for the Administration’s nuclear energy policies in that era. From 2003-2005, Sell served in the Bush White House as a Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and a Special Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs. From 1999 to 2003, he served as the Clerk for the Senate Energy & Water Subcommittee of Appropriations under the legendary Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico. Sell began his career in Washington on the staff of future House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry of Texas from 1995-1999.

Clay left Washington, DC, in 2008 for his home state of Texas to pursue private business interests. From 2008 to 2018 he was the president of Hunt Energy Horizons, LLC, the renewable energy subsidiary of Hunt Consolidated, Inc., a multi-national energy, real estate, and investment corporation controlled by the Ray L. Hunt Family of Dallas.

Clay holds a Juris Doctorate from the University of Texas School of Law and a BBA in Accounting from Texas Tech University.